To be honest, I'm not sure exactly when Mambo Italiano Pizzeria at 347 E. 14th St. near First Avenue closed. In the last six weeks or so. I never paid much attention to it...until the crowds starting forming across the street at Artichoke. That's when the Mambo folks apparently started a little different tact. Their sidewalk sign said, "Try our Artichoke pizza," perhaps in hopes of picking off someone who didn't know which place was which. I'm not sure it worked: I swear I never saw one person in Mambo. The workers would just be in there, standing around, looking hopeful as people walked by... staring across the street at the big line at Artichoke.
In any event, I almost popped in a few times for a pity purchase. Which is really lame. I did that years ago when I lived on Clinton Street. Some new Moroccan place opened (Sago?). Never saw one person in there for the first few months. I wanted to be supportive. I went there twice. Once for something to go. They had a little bar. I ordered a bottle of beer, which came to like $6.92. Fuck me. Then I dragged Mrs. Grieve in there once for brunch or some shit. It was awful. Both times. We still make jokes about the eggs Tagine. They eventually got a little crowd. Then it closed. Then the building got torn down to make way for a condo.
Anyway, I stopped walking by Mambo. Which is why I don't know exactly when it closed.
That's sad. Not because their pizza was good, but mainly because it is so obvious that Artichoke put them straight out of business. They have been there for years, surviving although they were never really busy. They probably squeaked by on the bar crowd. After Artichoke opened, it was soooo depressing passing by their place. No one was ever there. Meanwhile there would be some insane line outside of Artichoke. Who waits that long for pizza? I think we had their pizza once, it was fine. They were nice enough to feed my dogs a garlic knot or two, while they freaked out wanting to eat everything in the place.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment...I'm kind of embarrassed that I never paid until to the place until Artichoke opened.
ReplyDeleteI did got to Artichoke the one time -- mostly because there wasn't a line (to some amazement). I liked it, but I'm with you on the line.
My friend and I used to eat at Mambo from time to time a few years ago, but we stopped for a couple of reasons. First of all, the pizza wasn't great. Probably not even good. But what really turned was off was the dough-tossing incident, which still makes us laugh when we talk about it. The last time we went there, two little boys (they were kids of someone who worked there because they kept going into the back of the pizza shop) were running around playing with the pizza dough, literally throwing it around like it was a football as we sat there wondering if they had gotten their hands on the dough that our pizza had been made with... It was funny but a little scary!
ReplyDelete